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If you already have a website up and running but you’re lacking targeted visitors, check out 6 free ways to promote your website:

* Using Videos

Videos are extremely powerful if done right. Choose a topic you’re comfortable to talk about and create a series of videos. You can place these videos on our blog but make sure you also upload them to YouTube and other video websites. You can also choose to have just a text post on your website and the video on the video websites.

Just be creative. There are many types of videos out there. You can simply show your screen, you can record yourself, whatever you want.

Make your videos interesting and captivating.

* Podcasting

Podcasts are becoming more popular every day. They allow you to connect directly to your audience and there are many people who prefer podcasts to read a post or watch a video. Just give it a try.

* Using Forums

Start up by creating a spreadsheet of all the forums in your niche. Open an account with each one of them and create a signature with a link or two pointing to your website. Then, search for threads where you are able to give a good insight. The more answers you give, the better. This will make you not only have more links pointing to your website (within your signature) as it will also allow you to become an authority in your niche since other people on the forums will start to recognize you.

* Articles

Although they’re not so commonly used nowadays, it’s always good to have links pointing to your website. And with articles sites, you can have this through the “Resource Box” at the end of the article.

* Commenting on other Blogs

There are many blogs that still have their comments open. Just make a list of the best blogs in your niche, and check the ones that allow you to have a link to your website. Then, once a day, go through all those blogs you found and see if you can leave a relevant comment. Make sure not to spam or saying anything redundant. Your credibility is on the line here.

* Guest Blogging

Guest blogging is pretty common nowadays and there are many blogs accepting guest posts. Again, you need to make a list of the most relevant blogs that accept guest posts and see their guidelines carefully. Then, just follow them and try to be accepted. Make sure the blogs you choose allow you to have at least one link pointing to your website.

Each one of these methods works on its own; but it’s far better to use them all to see more results, sooner. Consistency is the key and with time, you’ll see a steady growth in your new visitors and visitors coming back to your website.

Web promotion is a simple process of increasing the exposure of your website among a target audience so that you can get more visitors on your web pages on a regular manner. The process of increasing the visibility of a website involves a lot of tasks. Some of them may seem complex and some are very easy. No matter whether they are easy or tough, you cannot avoid them when you wish to have a successful website and need to earn profit through the same. Thus, web promotion is important and you need it at every step.

Irrespective of the nature, age or size of the business promotion or advertisement is imperative for getting new clients and keeping the relationship intact with the existing ones.

Creating Brand Awareness

Web promotion is mainly needed for creating brand awareness which is important for the modern enterprises. Modern buyers prefer to believe on the brand name and check the brand reputation. Thus, they look for the top bands of the market when buying some products or services. You can make your brand name popular among your target audiences with the help of a right web promotion technique. This is also important to increase the overall market value of your business.

Open New Business Opportunities

Growth is the main thing in any kind of business. When you apply the right web promotion techniques then you can gain more business opportunities that can ensure your rapid growth. You can always enjoy having new scopes of working with other big names of this industry and become a reputed one. Collaboration with different other companies and brands can make your business more successful. But that cannot be possible until you apply an effective web promotion plan and make the other enterprises aware of your business and B2B offerings.

Increased Rate Of Traffic

After all, the main motto of developing a website is to gaining a good flow of traffic every day and transforming them into leads and then obtaining sales from them. All these can happen one after another when you apply an accurate and efficient web promotion strategy. Without this your website cannot achieve a good flow of traffic. That means the conversion rate will be slow and that makes your lead generation as well as sales ineffective. You cannot make people convinced about your services or goods until you bring them on your web pages. The web promotion method will do this job for you.

Increased Amount Of Profit

When your website receives a big amount of traffic every week and increase the lead then you can expect to have a growth in profit as well. You can become the part of an industry which is growing every day. You should know how to hold your position or optimize the same with the help of correct methods. When you start earning more profit then you can automatically beat your competitors in the market and make your business more popular. In business profit is the only thing that measures the success of a company.

Content is the most crucial element for a brand. It is a way to reach your target audience, drive traffic to your website, engage the visitor, increase conversion rates, enhance brand awareness and increase revenue.

Now, with the vast amount of content available on the internet, creating any content will not help you reach your goals. Your content needs to stand apart from the rest so that it attracts the attention of the potential customer. Therefore few qualities are a must in the content to aid your business growth and establish your brand in the market. Here are some attributes that are listed by companies providing content writing services.

Relevant

The content has to keep the target audience in mind. A well written and quality content that does not fulfill the needs and expectations of the users is not useful to them and cannot deliver results. Only the content that is valuable to the customer can influence his purchase decision.

High Quality

The content that provides information that is authentic, well researched, well written, interactive and well presented can engage the audience. The content also needs to be reliable and give value to the user. An exciting and engaging content not only encourages the visitor to stay longer on the website but also compels him to return. It is aligned with the objectives of the business.

Search Engine Optimized

Content that people are not able to find easily is practically of no use. Better optimized content increases the value of the content. It ranks higher in search engines and is therefore highly discoverable. All kind of content can be optimized by choosing the relevant topics and the right keywords. Optimized Content is readily available and consistent on various platforms and devices.

Marketing

Strategic marketing efforts are required to make people familiar with the brand. The platforms on which the content should be promoted and the budget required should be taken into account. The content that is highly shareable and linkeable encourages the audience to interact with it and share it with others. It moves fast on social media channels providing the required push to your brand building exercise.

Create a Niche

It is not only the information and usefulness of the content that makes it valuable. The type of audience also defines the brand. The content that can create an identity with the users sells well in the market even if the actual product doesn’t reflect those values. For example – Apple can build a ‘creative and unique’ image in the minds of the users and is in high demand among that category of customers.

Analyze Results

Compare the content with your competitors and analyze the performance. Evaluate where the content fell short and is not able to achieve the desired result. Evaluate the performance regularly and work on new improved strategies accordingly.

Conclusion

Showcase your content in different ways. Regularly create new blogs, articles, images, and videos etc. That talk about your products/services in an interesting and creative ways. Interact with the potential clients through queries, mails and feedback and keep the discussions about the brand alive. This enables to build trust and establish a name among potential customers. If you are struggling with developing quality content, then you must hire a content writing agency who can cater all your needs of unique and fresh material which will help in brand building.

Local search engine optimization isn’t a single strategy you implement to boost your website to the top of search engine rankings. Its powerful digital marketing strategy for business owners wanting to sell to local customers that combines a variety of best practices for SEO. Meaning, if you’re going to increase your local ranking and ensure you are not losing your customer to your competitor – implement local SEO strategies. Local SEO isn’t different from the regular SEO. It’s just that we using keywords that are more relevant to the local audience.

Your SEO checklist for your small business website

Content Rules

Search engines love content that is compelling and fresh. If you want to rank well in local search results, you need to publish new high quality website content as often as possible. Having a local SEO strategy is essential from the very beginning of your planning process. Plan your content strategy based on the keyword research. Your website content should be engaging and useful to your audience. Think of it this way: When many people come to your website using a particular search term, search engines monitor it – you will likely improve your search rankings. Include your keywords in the title tags and meta descriptions of your web pages. It’s observed, people tend to click on the links that have a keyword in it instead of the one which doesn’t.

Optimize NAP Information

After creating content that is optimized for your local search results, optimizing your NAP (Name, Address, and Phone Number) across your web presence is the most crucial factor. Wondering why? Well, search engines can pick up your NAP information from anywhere around the web. So, if you have different data on various sites, Google may not consider as a single entity. Apart from that, the consistency and quantity of NAP is a ranking factor for local search. Also, think about it this way – if people see different business details across the web, they may get confused about which one is the correct one. Moreover, they may end up contacting your competitor who has more consistent business information. A consistent NAP can get you higher visibility in local search.

Go Mobile

Do you log in to your laptop each time you what to search for something? No, right? You would instead pull out your phone or tablet go on the internet to find whatever you need. That’s what your customers would do too. Moreover, if your website gives a poor mobile user experience, they would get frustrated. In April 2015, Google rolled out a mobile-friendly algorithm and website that fail to comply with Google’s Mobile Friendly guidelines will result in losing mobile search traffic. Not only that, Google penalizes the sites which are not optimized for mobile devices. It can drastically hamper your mobile search results ranking. Google even provides tools to determine the mobile-friendliness of your website. Optimize your site for mobiles and embrace the traffic from those small screens out there. A mobile friendly website is also SEO friendly.

Provide Simple and Easy-To-Use Navigation

The website’s navigation is like a roadmap to your site. It is a factor that will decide how quickly a visitor finds what they’re looking. If people are getting frustrated leaving your website, it will result in an increased bounce rate. It will not only impact your user engagement but will also result in the loss of a potential client. Put time to think through and design website navigation that is easy for a visitor to use to find what they want. Plan your website architecture and based on it create website navigation. It will help you to have clarity of what should go where and which pages need to be interlinked.

Link Building is a Must

Search engines count a link back to your site a “vote of credibility”. It means, there is a possibility that search engines would show your site to the searches for the particular keyword. Links are like trust and authority. You will naturally have few links, but link building activity can increase the number of websites linking to your site and furthermore your website ranking. You can outreach websites with relevant, high-quality content that have good authority to link back to your website. It will help your small business to build online exposure, attract more customers and increase your website ranking. Link building demands regular outreach and follows up. It can be daunting, but in the process, you are acquiring quality links for your website and foster new relationships.

Last but not the least…

Local SEO is often complicated. An effective local SEO strategy is never truly complete. Along with optimizing your website, social media can also help you improve your search engine ranking. Search engine optimization and your website’s ranking are interlinked. Following these basic best practices will lay a solid foundation from which to build upon.

To become an SEO expert, one might need the proper guidance and professional support to master your skills. Here is why the best SEO institute in Gurgaon has been launched to mold experts. It helps you get the necessary skills so that you have everything to become an expert in the area. There can be different attributes of SEO training that need to be brought to understand the complete concept. It is becoming one of the popular fields. SEO skills are becoming one of the most demanding fields. Anyone can get these skills right by availing proper support from a well-experienced team.

Types of SEO

You can learn different types of SEO like On-Page, Off- Page and Technical. Each type has its own importance. On page helps to optimize the web pages seen online while Off page techniques are done outside your website but the purpose is to still get better search engine rankings. Technical SEO ensures that your website follows all the technical requirements required by search engines.

Identifying the need for SEO training

To become an SEO expert, one needs to clearly understand the available options.
To make the process much easier, SEO Training in Gurgaon can help you to get started in your journey of becoming an expert.
Being an expert brings additional responsibilities. You are supposed to provide the best services to others. So, it becomes necessary to gather the required help from experts who can help you become the best.
There are multiple dimensions like keyword searching, accessing the backlinks, and managing the website preferences that need to be taken care of in learning SEO skills.
These are the reasons why you should take up an SEO training course in Gurgaon from the best institutes to improve your skills and become an expert.
Outcomes of an SEO Training

After successfully completing SEO training, one is expected to master the skills if a thorough understanding of the various topics in SEO has been mastered.
The individual can get a better understanding of SEO in the digital marketing process
Learn the process of SEO in a step by step manner
The training period is scheduled for three months.
The institute provides some projects where the individuals can engage with the institute that helps them to advance their skills in SEO.
Finding the best ways to learn SEO

One of the best ways to learn SEO is to become a part of an ongoing project. Through the SEO training institute in Gurgaon, one can know the complete utilization of all the tools. The course is expected to bring a new change in SEO and help individuals master their skills. Thousands of websites are launching daily. So establishing the website in the search engine becomes important for the clients to identify the business. The exposure of SEO is expected to rise with the rise in the number of websites. So the course helps you to learn the skills at your pace. It helps to understand the minute details and get you started with becoming an SEO expert.

Our businesses also differ in terms of interface with clients. If you do “business to business” transactions, the number of people you interact with on a daily basis may differ from someone whose business relies on interacting with consumers. Appointments may be more practical in some instances than others. You have to tailor-make how you manage access to your particular situation if you are to eliminate distractions. Having said that it is important to note that some people do not mind spending the whole day at the office entertaining friends, visitors, and casual acquaintances dropping into the office whenever they feel like it. Do not be that kind of person. It sets the wrong kind of example to junior staff and can harm one’s productivity because these people take up time that you do not have and besides you want to cultivate a professional environment.

The demands of the day are enough to fill the eight working hours available unless if you tend to stay back and play catch up. How do you stay competitive in the market if there is no separation between work and play? Anybody serious about success and achieving effective results will put boundaries that are clear so that there is no confusion. Entrepreneurs are more susceptible to this especially when the workplace is easily accessible. The fact that you are your own boss even puts more responsibility on you to maintain self-discipline and self – management. I have written a whole book called, “Achieve More through Self – Leadership. In it I walk you through the practicalities of how you can get better results through managing self.

Appointments are an important way of not only managing time but managing life. They help you become more structured and productive. Some people seem not to be able to honour their appointments. I once attended a job interview that was supposed to start at 10:30am. By 11:30am there had been no communication about what was happening or when the supposed job interview was going to take place. I decided at the point that this company was probably not good enough for me to join because if you don’t respect people’s time you probably do not respect them.

You may be saying appointments are just not for me yet you never rock up at the doctor, dentist, lawyer or hairstylist without an appointment. Why is that the case? Because you simply won’t see the dentist without an appointment. They have given you conditions acceptable to them. We tell the world around us how to treat us by what we allow.

Some people are always available when you want to see them. If you are always free to see people at short notice, you are probably not that organized. The one who owns a diary will manage the one who doesn’t own one. Why? Because the one without the diary is always available, even though he is very likely to forget important meetings, dates and engagements because of a lack of organization. I used to have a boss who kept a diary and whatever you promised to do in the line of work, he would write down, including the day and time you said he would have it by. You would of-course forget because you didn’t record it like he did and when the time to deliver comes, guess who would be found wanting. It was then that I decided that I do not commit to an action that I am not willing to write down because, what’s written gets done!

You may be saying, “what if my business feeds off the “walk-ins? The fact that your business relies on walk – in customers should not be an excuse for disorder. Sometimes those who drop in unannounced may indeed be potential customers, suppliers, cold-calling salespeople, and even worthwhile business contacts. There is nothing wrong if the call is beneficial to you and your business but I believe there must be a structure and way of doing things that follows certain pre-set principles. I remember seeing a poster in an office that said “if you don’t have anything to do please don’t do it here”. It’s humorous yes, but true. Appointments help to structure your day and helps you allocate time to what’s important. This means you can focus on your most important asset: the paying customer. There is nothing as bad as walking into a place wanting to do business and staff are inattentive because there is just a demand on their time. I am more understanding if the personnel are not busy entertaining social visits at work.

In conclusion, you know your business situation better than any of us. All we can do is make recommendations that will enable efficiency that leads to growth. Some of you may actually need a personal assistant who will put order in your office and focus on the things you are not willing to do that will enable to focus on the highly value things you ought to do such as running a business.

Do you think successful people are just plain lucky?

Successful people did not become successful because they were lucky.

They did not achieve success by accident. Being at the right place at the right time, meeting relevant people, reading the appropriate book, did not come about accidentally or by luck.

Luck is brought about by Labour Under Correct Knowledge.

Successful people prepared themselves. Instead of giving up on anything they started and wanted to achieve they got stronger by learning more.

Success is a methodical, orderly and deliberate process of deciding what you want to do with your life, what are the steps that you need to undertake to get you there, and lastly what you will do once you get there.

One of the most important aspects, if not the most important aspect to success, is the ability to visualise your successful outcome and stay focused on it until you achieve it.

“Imagination is more important than knowledge, knowledge is limited.” – Albert Einstein

Successful people understood the potential power behind knowledge, yet they also understood that, for them to close the gap between where they are and where they wanted to be, they would have to piece together the enigma that is most often referred to as “life”.

They had to build a picture, a vision, of success in their mind, and then go about taking action on creating that envisioned life.

In much the same way, you have to be serious about your present and future, you need to have the knowledge that is required so you, too, may close the gap: you need to be and remain determined to devote yourself to taking massive action to build your business of succeeding in life.

You, too, will need to see the end, your dream and destiny that you desire in your mind’s eye. It is up to you to take the necessary and relevant action to make it all happen. It’s just like going to the doctor with a particular health problem.

The doctor may prescribe a medication for you to take four times a day, yet he cannot be there with you to ensure that you are taking the medication.

It comes back to deciding to be responsible for your life.

Have you noticed how it all stems from that one attitude? Being responsible for your own life.

Your success, your being responsible 100% for you to live your dream life starts here.

When you accept 100% responsibility for yourself and your current life situation, you will have the power to move towards those things you truly desire in life: which is success in all areas of your life.

This life-changing article is about possibilities and opportunities, knowledge and tools. It will help expose your unique course in life.

It will inspire, support and motivate you to excel, to do what successful people do, to have all that successful people have, and to become a shining example of a successful person.

Here, you’re not being told what you couldn’t do, instead you are being told to shoot for the stars. And above all, you are being shown how to shoot for those stars.

“A person is what he thinks about all day long.” – Emerson

Interesting thought, wouldn’t you think? So much so, it’s worth repeating: “A person is what he thinks about all day long.”

Success and happiness cannot happen if you possess the same old thoughts and beliefs.

If you do not change your mind, if you do not get rid of the unsupportive thoughts and beliefs, you will inevitably remain stuck in your old ways. Not much, if anything, will change.

Let’s give you a quick overview on how change comes about:

Your BEHAVIOUR, how you act (or perhaps do not act), controls your success or failure. Your ability to attain high levels of success is dependent upon your actions and behaviours. Your results are the outcome of your behaviour. Now let’s consider where your behaviours come from and what controls them?

Your FEELINGS command your behaviour. Every action that you take is first filtered through your feelings that reside in your subconscious mind. How you feel about something determines what you do and how well you do it. So where do your feelings come from?

Your ATTITUDES create and influence your feelings. Your attitude is your perspective from which you view life. Whatever attitude you have about anything will affect how you feel, which, in turn, affects how you act. Where do your attitudes come from?

Your BELIEFS create, control and influence your attitudes. What you believe about anything will determine your attitude about it, which will create your feelings, and then which will direct your behaviour and action. Belief patterns are so powerful that two people who are in the same situation could perceive things completely differently. It only requires us to believe what we see and how we see it. We all have thousands of beliefs – big and small. And where do your beliefs come from?

Your THOUGHTS create, control and influence your beliefs. Your thoughts are real and are immensely powerful. Everything you accept from the outside world and everything you feed yourself from within is a product of your thoughts. Everything starts as a thought.

So, it goes without saying you need to learn to control your thoughts. And when you do, you will automatically control your beliefs, your attitudes, your feelings and, consequently, your behaviour and actions.

The big secret to success:

Learn to control your thoughts and you will influence your behaviours and actions. It’s all a mind-set. That’s what we’ve been saying all along.

Success is predictable and is not achieved by accident.

Have the mind-set of the successful people and you will achieve success. Believe and it is yours!

“There is a great future in front of you, you can leave your past behind.” – Joel Osteen

Science of success experts have concluded that the brain is a goal-setting organism.

That is fantastic news for us: for whatever goal we give to our subconscious mind, it will work for us day and night, 24/7, to achieve it for us; to make it a reality.

The principal breakthrough that scientists made was that we do not need to waste our precious time and effort trying to change old thoughts and behaviours: we just simply create new ones.

And the other discovery they made was that we can continue to create new thoughts, new memories, new behaviours, new skills, and learn new things for as long as we are alive on this earth.

Now, with the new discoveries in recent years, it has been scientifically proven that our capacity to achieve and succeed literally has no limits.

Our brain has the capacity to continually learn during our entire lifetime.

Our brain can form new thoughts, can have new memories, and can learn new things by the millions, no matter what your age is. By the millions.

That’s how many new things we can learn, that’s how many new skills we can learn, that’s how many new thoughts we can have, that’s how many new behaviours we can adopt.

This is encouraging because there is no limit on your capacity to achieve new things.

No limits whatsoever for the human brain to learn, memorise, develop, achieve and perform at higher levels than ever imagined. It makes no difference what your age is: you are capable of learning anything new that you want to learn.

That adds to what we spoke of earlier: no more excuses.

“The future belongs to those who prepare for it today.” – Malcolm X

Your brain has the capacity to achieve way beyond what was ever thought possible. So now is the time to break out of your limited thinking and start dreaming big and imagining unlimited possibilities.

Becoming successful is not impossible.

It is a choice you make through a decision. Every day, step-by-step, you may climb the mountain of success if you’ve decided to do so, if you’re committed to accomplish what the others think impossible.

Design your future now.

Prepare to receive what you desire.

Thanks to the phenomenal advances made in cognitive science and the development of NLP (Neuro-Linguistic Programming), personal change, personal transformation, has come a very long way.

In fact, personal growth is no longer a mystery.

NLP has brought to light that change, transformation and growth can be fast, reliable, and even fun. It has shown us that we do not need to spend thousands of hours slaving away to increase our creative-thinking abilities.

By practicing a few simple exercises and applications, you can start your creative juices flowing, and you may even amaze yourself at the quality and quantity of good ideas that you can come up with to expedite your success.

It can allow you to achieve something you seek within days and months as opposed to years and decades. That’s the power of the progress science has made on how the brain works, and also how you can have your mind to be your best ally in achieving anything you want.

Learn to live as you like by no longer living as you dislike.

Are you ready to get on the road to success and fulfilment?

Bear in mind, much like everything else in life, success requires practice and massive, consistent action.

“Success doesn’t mean the absence of failures; it means the attainment of ultimate objectives. It means winning the war, not every battle.” – Edwin C Bliss

Do you feel as if you’ve outgrown your circle of friends? Perhaps you do not feel safe or understood any longer. There may be fewer and fewer things you can share with people in your habitual circle, and it leaves you feeling lonely or isolated. If so, you are not alone. Welcome to one of the core dynamics of continuous growth!

As we continue to evolve, many of us struggle with a sense of not quite fitting in with our traditional community or tribe: we may have expanded or changed beyond the borders of tribal norms, and no longer find the same sense of belonging there. Other members may have tightened the tribal rules to foster a sense of security. As a result, we may feel a sense of disconnection or alienation.

In truth, each one of us belongs to many tribes simultaneously: there is your original tribe – the family you were born into – and then there are all the communities of choice you have joined: your work tribe, your social circles, your faith-based community, your neighborhood, and more. These communities are not static; they are in continuous flux because they consist of individuals who are in continuous states of change. When there is a lot of change happening in either the individual or the community, a sense of dissonance results.

How are we to deal with this? First, it is important to recognize that tribal allegiances were historically forged for survival. They were adapted over the course of centuries to ensure the safety and survival of the group. Survival required that individuation be sacrificed for the trade-off of security.

In modern society, the tables are flipped. Whether we enjoy it or not, change is essential for survival at every level of being. The pace of change is driven by technological advances and happens with increasing rapidity: sociologists estimate that more change has taken place in society over the course of the past 100 years, than in the totality of the previous 6,000 years. Individual adaptation now is a requirement for survival, and the pace of individual change does not always match the pace at which our various tribal communities evolve. The resulting dissonance can cause intense friction and pain.

Dissonance also results from confusion between the concepts of ‘connection’ and ‘community.’ We tend to equate one with the other, when they really relate to different qualities. Connection relates to connectivity: the objective physical technology or media that enables us to build community, but which does not represent the quality of that community. Connectivity simply offers the opportunity to connect with others through internet, texting, phone calls, or any other social networking options.

Community is the result of building relationship through meaningful interaction over time. There is no shortcut; it is a process that develops when bonds of trust and intimacy are nurtured and honored.

And here lies a caveat: When we confuse connectivity with community, we depersonalize the sacred nature of true community and start relating to people as objects. Instead of developing intimacy over time, we collect friends on social network sites or try to buy people’s allegiance. Yet friending is simply an act of connecting; it does not create intimacy.

In fact, social experiments indicate that technologically dominated connectivity results in alienation and social collapse over time. In a groundbreaking social experiment conducted by Josh Harris, one of the founders of social networking on the internet, he found that the more people’s private lives were exposed by 24/7 technology, the more their sense of intimacy and relationship deteriorated until the community collapsed in violence and self-destructive behavior.

It is time to revisit our concepts of community so we can create tribes that offer a true sense of intimacy and belonging.

In his 1987 book, The Different Drum: Community Making and Peace, psychologist M. Scott Peck described several core characteristics of true community. Beyond the obvious components of inclusivity, commitment and participatory consensus, Peck pointed out the quality of embracing diversity through realism. When each member contributes their unique viewpoint from a place of humility and goodwill, the community benefits from a broader perspective in which to better grasp the full context of a situation. In other words, mutual tolerance helps members to embrace one another’s different viewpoints as an integral part of the whole, instead of imposing a forced compliance to groupthink or cohesion.

In an environment like this, members experience and express compassion and respect for one another. They allow others to share their vulnerability, to learn and grow, and to express who they truly are. When conflict arises, they learn to resolve it with wisdom and grace. Members listen to and respect each others’ gifts, accept each others’ limitations, celebrate their differences, and commit to find solutions together rather than to fight against each other. Indeed, the true spirit of community is the spirit of peace, love, wisdom and power. The source of this spirit may be seen as an outgrowth of the collective self or as the manifestation of a Higher Will.

Does this description of community sound spiritual to you? It is indeed, because Spirit is the common denominator among all of us, regardless of how separate we feel from others.

As human beings, we often experience a socio-economic sense of separation from others because of different opinions, beliefs, expectations, language, culture, or interests, since each one of us expresses these in a way uniquely different from anyone else. And still, we continue to differentiate! In this ongoing process, we continue to evolve or devolve in response to life. A community that felt like a good fit last year may no longer work today; the places where we felt embraced, now may suffocate us. Over the course of a lifetime, we can expect to outgrow and change allegiances to many of the tribal communities we once belonged to.

And yet, when we transcend the layers of physical appearance, mental beliefs and socio-economic conditioning, we find in the presence of Spirit a common denominator in everyone around us. Perhaps it is time to expand our tribal definitions to embrace a spiritual community that includes all of mankind as children of God.

Mother Teresa admonished her nuns to see Jesus in every leper they encountered, to find His presence as they looked into the eyes of the homeless. When we can look past the issues that divide us to find omnipresent Divinity in each other, we will uncover the foundations of true community.

Spiritual community transcends all socio-economic borders, beliefs and backgrounds. It is inclusive because it operates on voluntary self-responsibility and mutual compassion, and its doors are open to everyone.

Building this type of community takes time: time to listen, to hear, to respond and to participate. Take a few moments to read the description of spiritual community again. Then, make time in your life to foster that type of connection with people who matter to you. You are one of the architects of community in your life, and you can participate in building a tribe where you belong.

What would happen to you if your home life was more organized than it is right now? Can work-life balance be achieved? What are the tools at our disposal? Could scheduling appointments and keeping them at home help us save time and prioritize?

What is the challenge we face? I sometimes find that time spent at home can be the busiest time, especially in the times we live in. Imagine someone working from home, home-schooling children, and sometimes even doing a side hustle. Imagine also the full-time home-based entrepreneur. How do they manage to do all they need to do in a day?. We are living in a time when many entrepreneurs and even company employees have adopted work- at – home culture. This comes with its challenges as the lines become blurred between home and work. These blurred lines and constraints on the limited resource called time result in over-worked, under-rested, burnt-out individuals. Whilst good time management has been encouraged and indeed, embraced in the workplace, I believe more needs to be done in changing the mindset for the elusive work-life balance to be achieved.

What are the tools at our disposal? To manage time effectively at home, there are many interventions one can employ including setting goals for the day, prioritizing wisely, setting a time limit for every task, organizing oneself, and instituting the discipline of appointments. Yes, an appointment at home! We can spend time pontificating on the pros and cons of each intervention, however, I believe we need to focus on appointments and see how this can powerfully change the course of one’s day regardless of whether it’s a workday or weekend. Life is busy as it is without any intrusions. The question is how do you handle the one who announces that they are at the gate. These can be friends, neighbors, a salesman of some product you do not even need. I am not promoting regimentation here but rather a culture of filling your day with what’s important. Everything that we succeed at is because we carefully plan and execute it. I am a firm believer that you cannot manage time if you do not manage yourself thus I implore you to incorporate planning and appointments into your repertoire. I am not talking about something I do not do. I have to achieve many things in a day therefore I set appointments with my work, others, and myself.

Could scheduling appointments and keeping them on the home front help us save time and prioritize? Whereas we have established that it is a normal business practice to set appointments and keep them, we need to abandon the liberal open-door policy of allowing all and sundry to have access to us as and when they please on the home front. Please understand where I am coming from. We each have greatness within us but for us to achieve it we need to culture great habits. Employing the use of appointments at home and seeing only those people you had agreed to see removes non-essential encounters especially during the most productive hours. I know this will vary with culture, geographical region, or even level of affluence, whether you live in a low density or high-density residential area, but doesn’t negate the need to be organized and effective. Controlling access determines how organized you are and how well you will work and rest when the time for scheduled rest comes.

What do we need to do differently? We need to be disciplined and diligent, learn to say no, now is not a good time, let’s make an appointment for next week. What are the benefits of this approach? You are not always fire-fighting to meet deadlines, You are not always tired because you have not taken time out to rest. You have set aside enough time to spend with your loved ones or a loved one. If you are a busy person, I am sure you appreciate what I am saying. Whether it’s time to work uninterrupted, family time, or “me-time”, it takes some kind of order to enjoy it.

I am not saying that those that come unannounced are bad people. No, not at all, they probably are people you enjoy spending time with. Nevertheless, there must be prior communication so that you can attend to your visitor(s) when it is convenient for both you and them. It can be quite disrupting and a whole day can just pass by without achieving anything that you had planned to do.

As we grow older we begin to appreciate that rest and recovery need to be scheduled. The fact that I am relaxing doesn’t mean that I don’t have anything to do. One therefore cannot assume that just because you are at home you are available. Maybe you have scheduled that time to rest. That is important. You need to make an appointment with yourself, spouses need to also set aside time for each other. Parents need to schedule a time to spend with their children. When you have some sort of order in your life you determine who sees you and who you see. It also means that your relationships will be healthy and that makes you a happier person.

In conclusion, I believe that the work-life balance can be achieved. There are many tools at our disposal just like it is in the workplace.I believe we could do more and be happier if we are disciplined enough to make only the commitments we can keep.I am certain that setting appointments and keeping them at home help us save time and prioritize.